HTC Flyer

If there's one thing Android enthusiasts love, it's a good deal. Oh, and an unlocked bootloader. And timely software updates. But mostly good deals. To that end, we draw your attention to Buy.com, where HTC's Flyer tablet is on sale for just $199.99, plus free shipping. It's a refurbished 16GB model, but the Flyer beats out a lot of tablets at that price point. You don't get HTC's add-on stylus, but on the plus side, the update to Honeycomb is out... so the tablet's only one major Android release behind at this point.

When the HTC Flyer launched way back in May, Android 3.0 Honeycomb was in its infancy, which made the Flyer's smartphone OS easier to swallow. Now that the Honeycomb update is available and Ice Cream Sandwich ROMs are abundant on smartphones, many have wondered if the Flyer would get a similar icy treatment. While there's no official word, a brief conversation between a French HTC Hub member and customer service indicates that an ICS update is scheduled for the first quarter of this year.

Though Best Buy recently pulled their HTC Flyer from their online store, the "Now" network's EVO View 4G - essentially the same device - has an Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) update available for download. It will be pushed to devices tomorrow, but can be easily downloaded and updated today. Honeycomb brings some much needed features to the EVO View 4G, and the most noticeable being the new "Notifications" menu.

Could the Flyer be discontinued? It is no longer available for purchase on Best Buy's website, and the trend may follow with other retailers soon. It has been discounted many times over the past couple months, and may be nearing the end of its shelf-life. Of course, after using the tablet myself - it functions better than many of the current tabs out there.

The popular 7" HTC Flyer tablet has finally made a safe landing at T-Mobile this week. Way back in June it cleared the FCC with T-Mobile bands but that was the last we've heard of it until today. While not for sale from T-Mobile themselves you can buy the T-Mobile powered HTC Flyer right now from HTC's website. With a new 2-year agreement the price is just $299, like it's been for a while at Best Buy.

Regional carriers are often a little behind the times when it comes to the latest devices, but US Cellular customers usually get a pretty good assortment of new toys to play with. Come October 7th (tomorrow), they can add the HTC Flyer Gingerbread tablet to the list. The 7-inch tablet will cost $399 after a $100 mail-in-rebate at its lowest.

After some already dramatic reductions last week, it looks like the HTC Flyer is getting the fire sale treatment from the US' largest electronics retailer. The 7-inch Gingerbread tablet was marked down to just $99.99 sometime this morning, and has already sold out online. The discounted price may or may not be available at your local retail store and store pickup is not being offered, so if you want to take a chance on a great bargain, make tracks now. UPDATE: False alarm, folks. It looks like Best Buy had another ill-timed pricing error.

Rumors are flying that HTC's first Android tablet will be seeing a significant price reduction soon. According to Phone Arena, Best Buy will be slashing the price of the wifi-only HTC Flyer to $300, a $200 reduction off the current retail price, next Thursday. If true, that could make the 7-incher a lot more attractive as the Android tablet market races to the bottom.
UPDATE: It looks like Best Buy is reducing the price even earlier, on Saturday, October 1st.

Today U.S. Cellular has just announced three new exciting Android products to their existing lineup. We have the HTC Wildfire S entry level smartphone, the HERO S, and the HTC Flyer Android 2.3 Gingerbread tablet. All devices will come running with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and will be available starting next month.

Just like a few other HTC devices in the recent past the HTC Flyer tablet has been added to the list of supported devices from HTC that is allowed freedom. We all know the HTC bootloader situation plenty well so I wont go into that, but it's now appearing over at HTCdev.com/bootloader in pretty much every version.